Crazy Heart (Fox Searchlight)
Rated R for language and brief sexuality.
Starring Jeff Bridges, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Colin Farrell, Robert Duvall, Beth Grant, Sarah Jane Morris, Annie Corley, Tom Bower, Jack Nation.
Written by Scott Cooper, based on the novel by Thomas Cobb.
Directed by Scott Cooper.
GRADE: A-
REVIEWWhen your life is like a country song, it may not be very fun, but it always makes for a good story, or at least very interesting. The hard times and hard living of a fictional country star provide the backdrop for one such life in the film
Crazy Heart, which thankfully made its way to Utah this week.
Jeff Bridges stars as Bad Blake, an aging, alcoholic, washed up country star reduced to playing bowling alleys and small dives. During one such tour stop, Bad meets up with a budding journalist and single mom named Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and the two begin a romance.
When Bad crashes his 1977 Suburban, Jean takes him in while he recovers from a broken ankle, and the old man grows closer to Jean's pre-school son Buddy. When he heals, Bad invites Jean and Buddy to hi home in Houston. On a trip to the mall, Bad loses Buddy while getting a drink at a bar, causing Jean to sever their relationship.
Having lost the love of his life and the chance at having a family, Bad wallows in his drinking until one morning he calls on his best friend and bar owner Wayne (Robert Duvall) for help in getting sober. Bad's hope is to get clean and get Jean and Buddy back.
Like all good country songs, happy endings are hard to come by, but I won't give away the ending for
Crazy Heart. Suffice to say it's worth the wait.
Despite the existence of several country music cliché's like rampant alcoholism, womanizing and broken families,
Crazy Heart is one of the best films of 2009 (it was released in select cities more than 2 months ago to get it qualified for this year's Oscar contest, and with good reason). The biggest asset to the movies is Bridges who gives perhaps one of the greatest performances of his career. I can't say enough good things about his portrayal of Bad Blake, and I don't just mean the acting. Singing all the original songs written for
Crazy Heart (by T-Bone Burnett, Stephen Bruton, and Ryan Bingham), Bridges comes across as a real country singer with an honest voice and real talent.
The songs are another great aspect of
Crazy Heart, having poetic qualities among some of the best country songs. The songs, repeated several times over the course of the film during Bad's performances are like one of the main characters in the film. The Oscar-nominated "The Weary Kind" is only one of three or four excellent compositions. It's a shame they can't all win an award of some kind.
Another surprising singing performance in
Crazy Heart comes from Colin Farrell, who plays Bad's former protégé-turned-country-superstar who tries to help his old mentor out. Both actors are truly convincing as country singers. Best Oscar nominee Maggie Gyllenhaal also turns in a worthy performance as the tough mother who falls for a charming but difficult man.
Robert Duvall also turns in a yeoman performance as Bad's pal, but it's his role as producer that gives
Crazy Heart even more poetry.
Crazy Heart is a nice book-end to Duvall's own triumph as a country music star down on his luck in 1983's
Tender Mercies, which won him an Oscar. It looks like
Crazy Heart might reap the same reward for Bridges. I certainly hope so.
